SNOWSTORM ON MARS

Episode #531 · Written by Sam Merwin Jr. · Narrated by Scott Miller

Mars is beginning to change. Thanks to new energy sources and experimental agriculture, the once-barren world is slowly growing grasslands capable of supporting cattle. For the settlers of the Red Planet, those herds represent far more than livestock—they represent the possibility that Mars might finally sustain human life without constant resupply from Earth.

But something is wrong with the cattle.

At first the incidents seem like strange accidents. A steer behaves erratically. A herd moves in eerie coordination. Soon the animals begin attacking one another and forming unnatural patterns across the Martian plains. Lynne Marcein recognizes the danger immediately. Years earlier she helped defeat a terrifying form of native Martian life—electrical entities that once tried to invade human minds. Now those same beings may have discovered a new and vulnerable host.

The timing could not be worse. Lynne is weeks away from giving birth to the second child ever carried to term on Mars. Her husband, the engineer responsible for harnessing the planet’s mysterious E-power, is trapped on Earth by politics and distance. With communications failing and the threat spreading across the colony’s only cattle range, Lynne must rely on her telepathic abilities and the help of a small team to stop the infestation before the Martian agricultural program collapses.

The problem grows quickly, and every solution carries new risks. If the creatures cannot be forced out of their hosts, the entire herd may be lost. If the herd is lost, the dream of raising food on Mars may collapse with it. And all the while Lynne must face the reality that her child may arrive at any moment on a planet where birth itself has barely been proven possible.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Sam Merwin Jr. (1910–1996) was a science fiction writer and editor who played a major role in the genre’s magazine era. He served as editor of Startling Stories and Thrilling Wonder Stories during the 1940s, two of the most widely read science fiction magazines of their time.

Merwin also wrote fiction for those same publications and for other pulp magazines throughout the 1940s and 1950s. His novels include The House of Many Worlds and Three Faces of Time, and his stories often explored planetary colonies, strange alien forces, and the technological challenges of life beyond Earth.

LISTEN TO THE STORY

Listen to Snowstorm on Mars by Sam Merwin Jr. — a vintage science fiction short story of alien forces, telepathy, and a desperate fight to save Mars’ fragile cattle frontier.

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